Light for Rights: World AIDS Day 2009November 23, 2009
In New York City's Washington Square Park, dignitaries and speakers including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, amfAR Chairman Kenneth Cole, actress and UNAIDS goodwill ambassador Naomi Watts, and other special guests will watch as the floodlights illuminating the Washington Square Arch are extinguished and then restored. As part of the event, the marquee lights of major Broadway theaters will also be dimmed. amfAR and its partner organizations have created a special World AIDS Day website (www.lightforrights.org) that provides facts about HIV/AIDS, descriptions of Light for Rights activities can be organized in other locations, social networking ideas, and templates for op-eds and letters to the editor. In 2007, the last year for which figures are available, 2.7 million people were newly infected with HIV, almost half of whom were young people between the ages of 15 and 24. The number of new infections continues to outpace the number of people receiving treatment. ![]()
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